Product Portfolio: Product of the Week - Xerox DocuColor 8000.

Publication: Print Week

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Haymarket Business Publications Ltd.

With the 8000 Xerox is filling a gap in its range and taking on digital and small-format offset rivals, finds Karen Charlesworth.

For two years there was a gaping hole in the Xerox colour portfolio, between the 60ppm DocuColor 6060 and the flagship 100ppm iGen3. It left Xerox users who were at the top end of their production capacity with the 6060 either struggling to make the leap to iGen3 or deciding to find floorspace for an additional 6060. But with the launch of the 80ppm DocuColor 8000, the struggle is now over.

The new 8000, however, isn't just about pages per minute. DocuColor marketing manager Kevin O'Donnell says that while the press is more souped-up 6060 than cut-down iGen3, all its major components and engine elements have been re-thought and re-engineered to produce a colour digital press with 'enormously improved image quality, productivity and reliability.'

Perhaps the most significant new technology in the 8000 is on the image quality front. A new Vertical Cavity Service Emitting Laser (Vcsel) replaces the old dual-beam laser and allows the 8000 series to drive 32 light beams at once. So resolution is thus bumped up to 2,400x2,400dpi - four times the 6060's, meaning it can address 5.7m dots per inch.

Xerox has added to the DocuColor 8000 a facility for digital screening, running 'clustered dot' 150-600lpi screen, with the ability also to support stochastic screening.

This is available no matter which of the three RIPs is chosen (Xerox's own DSP8000 Colour Server for DocuSP workflows, Creo CXP8000, or EFI EXP8000.

'Digital screening is a real coup for...

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